Sports

Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Pecos select team members to play in Kansas tourney

Four Pecos players are among 11 members of a 12-yearold baseball team
that will be participating in a national tournament later this month in Hutchison,
Kan.

Isaiah Rayos, Robert Nunez, Cody Hernandez and John Paul Salcido are the
local members of the West Texas Diablos, who are participating in the USSSA
Select Team competition this summer. Coach John Salcido said the team has
a 21-9 record this summer, and was ranked first among Texas teams in the
USSSA state poll.

"We're currently ranked first in the state of Texas and ninth in the nation
out of 1,196 teams," Salcido said. "We were ranked sixth, but we dropped
a little after last week."

The team placed second in the Texas Western Zone competition the weekend
on June 30-July 1 in El Paso, going 4-1 over the weekend with their loss
coming by a 5-4 decision to the El Paso Indians in the tournament's title
game. Salcido said earlier the team placed fifth of 30 teams in the Texas
Eastern Zone Tournament.

Aside from the teams from El Paso, Salcido said the Diablos have played
teams from Andrews, Plano, Lubbock, Midland, Fort Worth and Albuquerque and
Hobbs, N.M. so far during their summer season.

Rayos and Nunez are two of the team's pitchers, while aside from Hernandez
and Salcido, the rest of the team is made up of players from Odessa. That
group includes pitchers Aaron Medanich, who is the grandson of former Pecos
resident Joe Bob Kelton, Omar Olivas and Steven Acosta. The other players
on the team are Tito Gabaldon, Justin Morales, Joey Acosta and Michael Caballero,
with Salcido, Benny Hernandez and Jesse Rayos as coaches.

Salcido said the Hutchison, Kan. tournament will start on July 21, and
is scheduled to run through July 29.

Saturday starting times set for Pecos LL, Junior teams

Times have been set for this weekend's District 4 Tournament games for
the Pecos Little League and Junior League All-Star teams.

The Little Leaguers will need four wins over the weekend to take their
11-12 year division title. They'll start play at 5 p.m. on Saturday in Ballinger
against San Angelo Lake View in the loser's bracket of the double-elimination
tournament. If they win that, they'll come back and play at 8 p.m. on Saturday
against the loser of the San Angelo Western-San Angelo Northern contest earlier
in the day, and the winner of that will meet the winner of the Northern-Western
game at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Pecos would have to win that game to force a deciding game Sunday night
for the District 4 title, which would be held at 8 p.m.

The Little Leaguers fell into the loser-bracket with an 11-3 tournament
opening loss to Western this past Saturday, then beat Wall, 11-0, and San
Angelo Southern, 8-2 on Sunday to stay alive.

The Junior Leaguers have a chance to get the 13-14 year old tournament
after 4-1 and 17-7 wins over Lake View and North Concho last weekend. They'll
play a 2 p.m. game on Saturday against San Angelo Northern, and the winner
will advance to Sunday afternoon's championship game, while the loser has
to play again at 8 p.m. Saturday in an elimination round contest, and would
then have to win twice on Sunday to take the District 4 title.